Looking around for a way to kill the saves, I actually found that. I didn't do it for two reasons:
1) Still not knowing the reason for the periodic saves, I hesitated to stop them.
2) Because it's called an "interval", a logical effect of making it zero could be to cause continuous saves.

Can you tell me why Puppeee or Puppy does periodic saves?

Have you or Aniken or anyone else set the Save Interval to 0 in the Desktrop Drive Manager, and proved that the result is no saves before shutdown, but a save at shutdown?

First, periodic saves only occure with pendrives and cards (maybe with usb drives in general, not sure). Usually Puppy runs in RAM. No matter you are installing programs or writing text, this happens first in RAM. Pendrives and sd cards are much slower than HDs and live time will decrease with many write cycles. So periodical saves are a compromise between live time, speed and safety. If there is any failure (e.g. power failure or system freezes), all your work since the last save is lost. On the other hand, if you're doing something wrong (e.g. deleting an important file by accident), an improper shutdown could save your ass (it did it often for me , but don't do it during a write process). It's your decision what you prefer. Remember the counsel 'allways have a backup of your save file'? If you have one, and maybe a 2nd pen drive with a working Puppy, you are on the save side.

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Have you or Aniken or anyone else set the Save Interval to 0 in the Desktrop Drive Manager, and proved that the result is no saves before shutdown, but a save at shutdown?

Yes, but not in Puppeee (shouldn't make any difference).

Maybe some words about installing puppies. I don't know ISOBooter, but I know a lot of posts from rcrsn51 and he always gives good advice. If he says it works, it works. Why it doesn't work for you, I don't know.
Booting directly a ISO is a newer feature. Since I'm here in the forum, I do it in a more conventional way (Puppy wouldn't be Puppy if there would be only one way, others may prefer another ways):

Lets say I'm in a working Puppy and want to install a Puppy on a pen drive (mostly I want more than one on a drive).
I build a new folder on the pen drive with the name of the desired Puppy, e.g. slacko-5.4.
I mount the ISO by left click on it.
I copy the content of the ISOI to this folder (because 'm lazy, exactly you only need 3-5 files: vmliunuz, initrd.gz and Puppyxxx.sfs, and if available zdrv.sfs and adrive.sfs).
Left click the ISO again to unmount it.
Then I run Grub4Dos config, installing Grub4Dos to the pen drive and it shall only search the pen drive. Let it build a new menu.lst.
On my Eee900 I press ESC during reboot to get the BIOS Boot Menu (YMMV), select the pen drive for booting and get the boot menu of Grub4Dos. Here I can select the fresh installed Puppy (or others, if installed).
Installing more Puppies is the same. Copy the content of the ISO (or at least the important files) to a new folder and rerun Grub4Dos config or add a new entry in the menu.lst manually. That's all. Hopefully I haven't forgotten any important step.

Pendrives and sd cards are much slower than HDs and live time will decrease with many write cycles.

That's interesting. I didn't know that pendrives are slower than HDs. Maybe that explains why a few Puppeee programs, like editors, are running slower than I expected.

What exactly does "live"mean? I've seen that word used a lot in connection with Linux distros and never understood it.

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allways have a backup of your save file

I've seen that, but I couldn't figure out where to put the backup. Another folder or a different partition on the same pendrive, or a different drive altogether?

By the way, since Puppeee seems able to read all the files on my hard drive regardless of their format, I assume it can read any file on any filesystem, right?

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Yes, but not in Puppeee (shouldn't make any difference).

I'll try that, then. I did go into the Drive Icon Manager and change the interval to 120, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Maybe putting a zero there instead will. If not, I guess I'll have to modify /usr/sbin/eventmanager, although I have no experience of changing configuration files and it looks scary. Would I do it using Geenie or the terminal?

Re Isobooter, I plan to try it again as soon as I have the time. Now that I discovered that for some boot loaders I need to press Escape instead of F2, maybe I can get it to work. (My current Puppeee loads without having to do anything at power on, as the BIOS is set to load from "Removable Media" and that's enough for it. The installations I made with Isobooter wouldn't do that.)

I found your description of installing a new Puppy very helpful. A few questions about it:

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I build a new folder on the pen drive with the name of the desired Puppy, e.g. slacko-5.4

Would that be a folder in an ext3 partition that you created especially for that installation using Gparted?

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I mount the ISO by left click on it. I copy the content of the ISO to this folder

It isn't necessary to use Isomaster to extract the files?

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Then I run Grub4Dos config, installing Grub4Dos to the pen drive and it shall only search the pen drive.

I'm not clear on this. Do you copy grb4dos into the folder where the iso is before running it, or run it from whatever folder it's stored in (root, for example)? Or do you run it from the terminal? (My Puppeee 4.4 didn't come with grub4dos, but rcrsn51 gave me a download address for it and I put it in the "Downloads" subfolder of /root. Will it run in the terminal from there, or is there a special place it needs to be in order to run as a terminal command?)

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the boot menu of Grub4Dos. Here I can select the fresh installed Puppy (or others, if installed).

Grub4dos gives a boot menu of all the iso's in the folder, is that right? I take it, then, that it composes the menu from them, so they need to be in that folder before you run grub4dos on it?

This question of where to put the various iso's is confusing. If they're all in the same folder, then you only need one copy of grub4dos, right? If they're in separate folders or separate partitions, you need grub4dos in each folder, and the same for separate partitions, right?

But if there are various copies of grub4dos on a pendrive, how does the BIOS know which one to boot from? If the BIOS selects the first one it finds (the one in the first folder or partition), then how can you boot iso's in another folder or partition?

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Installing more Puppies is the same. Copy the content of the ISO (or at least the important files) to a new folder and rerun Grub4Dos config or add a new entry in the menu.lst manually.

Does this work if menu.list is in a different folder (the folder where the first iso was put)?

I'm going to give Isobooter another try, and if I still can't get it to work for me I'd like to try your method. That's why these details are important to me.

Sorry, I meant life time . English isn't my native language, so sometimes I use wrong words or words in a wrong context. The less you write on a sd card the longer it works.

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... I couldn't figure out where to put the backup.

It's your decision, safety vs. comfort. If your partition with your save file gets corrupt, it's good to have the backup at least on another partition. If the drive gets corrupt, it's good to have the backup on another drive and so on. Sometimes I would be glad to have a recent backup at least on the same partition .

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Would that be a folder in an ext3 partition that you created especially for that installation using Gparted?

Most of the time I use ext3, but again, it's your decision. You can also use vfat (fat32), ext2 or ext4. With ISObooter, I think you need fat32, but I'm sure it's written in the ISObooter thread .

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I assume it can read any file on any filesystem, right?

No. I don't think so. There are so many different systems...
ntfs,fat16, fat32, ext2,3,4, raiserfs and btrfs (the last one only a little bit), yes. Maybe f2fs soon (hopefully).

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It isn't necessary to use Isomaster to extract the files?

Yes, it isn't necessary.

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Do you copy grb4dos into the folder where the iso is before running it, or run it from whatever folder it's stored in (root, for example)?

No. Usually I use a Puppy with build in grub4dosconfig (thanks rcrsn51, I really should be more exact ). Another way is to install grub4dosconfig. This installs the bootloader grub4dos. You can find it here. After download you install it ( or every other pet) with a simple left click. It doesn't matter, where you stored it. After installation, there should be a entry in the menu. If not, open a terminal (from menu or by click on console icon) and type 'grub4dosconfig'. Usually it will be found, no matter where you open the terminal. Will it work in Puppeee? I think so, but don't know. You have to find out by yourself .

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Grub4dos gives a boot menu of all the iso's in the folder...
...This question of where to put the various iso's is confusing.

In my description there is no ISO on the pen drive. This part is different to ISObooter. As I wrote, "Copy the content of the ISO (or at least the important files) to a new folder...". Each Puppy has it's own folder. There is only one Grub4Dos installed. If you want a new Puppy after installation of grub4dos, you must edit the menu.lst by adding a new entry or by running grub4dosconfig again. The latter seems to be easier for newcomers .

Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I am still somewhat confused about your method and am hoping I can make Isobooter work for me, but I have a few questions regarding your method in case I do need to use it.

First, about the save file:

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If your partition with your save file gets corrupt, it's good to have the backup at least on another partition. If the drive gets corrupt, it's good to have the backup on another drive and so on. Sometimes I would be glad to have a recent backup at least on the same partition.

The whole 4Gb pendrive where I put Puppeee 4.4 is formatted as one bootable partition. What would be best for me to do, add a new partition or just put the backup copy in the one single partition? (I have no idea how much space Puppeee really needs, or how big the save file is, so these are important considerations on a 4Gb pendrive.)

I may have already asked this, but is it really safe to add a large file like the save file to the same partition that Puppeee is on? If so, how do I do it? Where do I put it? Just in a new folder in / ?

Importantly, how do I find the save file? I have looked for it but cannot find it. Pfind, the file finder program, does not find it. Where is it?

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Another way is to install grub4dosconfig. This installs the bootloader grub4dos. You can find it here

Thank you for the link to grub4dos-0.4.4.v1.8.0.pet. Important question: If I download and install it, it won't cause conflicts with the grub4dos pet that I already installed from rcrsn51's link, will it?

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In my description there is no ISO on the pen drive.

Okay, I think I understand now. The files extracted from each Puppy's iso go into a separate folder in a partition, then grub4dosconfig is run on that partition and it makes a menu.list of all the Puppies it finds, as well as installing a bootloader in the partition. Is that right?

I need your help. I can no longer boot my Puppeee pendrive. Here is what happened:

I wanted to save the directory and file tree structure of the Puppeee pendrive, so I booted into windows and plugged in the pendrive.

Then I opened a terminal in Windows (the command interpreter) and did this on each of the three directories in the pendrive (E):
E:\dir > E_root.tx
in order to get a list of the files and directories by redirecting output of the dir command to a file. I did this for each of the three directories on the pendrive (E:\, E:\boot. and E:\boot\syslinux).

The three text files were created in the three directories. I realize now that I should not have done that, but I was not thinking ahead.

Anyway, I deleted the three text files from the directories in E and tried to reboot into the pendrive. It won't boot. I've tried to boot it every way possible, and no dice. Something must have happened to it by making those files, or maybe by deleting them (I tried to put them back, but it did no good).

I've lost my wonderful Puppeee pendrive, that it took me a month of sweat and tears to install and boot.

The whole 4Gb pendrive where I put Puppeee 4.4 is formatted as one bootable partition. What would be best for me to do...

It's hard to answer your question because there is mostly more than one truth and I don't know your exact situation. I for myself have always a 2nd Puppy on another pendrive or sd card. So, if something goes wrong, I can always boot into a working Puppy.

Skip. I just saw your last post . I'm not laughing you down, I remember my own situation in the beginning . To give you a positive feedback, we all are learning best by the faults we are making .

Skip back. Do you have a 2nd pendrive? Maybe you gave the answer before, but I don't like to reread all the pages in this thread.

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...but is it really safe to add a large file like the save file to the same partition that Puppeee is on?

Like in real life, 100% safety doesn't exist. Never! It's an illusion. Safe, safer, safest, but even a safest situation is never 100% safe! It's usual in Puppyland to put the safe file into the same folder where the other puppy files are. So I also do. If possible, I would build a backup of the save file on another drive. If not possible, I would use another partition. If also not possible, I would use the same partition.

Usually the save file of Puppee starts with 'eeesave'. Only you are able to know which file system you used when you built it. 2fs? 3fs? 4fs?

Same situation with the size of the file. I don't have a crystal bowl. I don't know which size you choosed when built. When you used the default size, it's 512MB. Here are people who are using save files of 32MB or 64MB and others are using 10GB and more. From my point of view, 512MB is a good compromise (I also mostly use).

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If I download and install it, it won't cause conflicts with the grub4dos pet that I already installed from rcrsn51's link, will it?

I don't think it will conflict, but at last, I don't know. Before installing the second, I would uninstall the first and vice versa. To uninstall, open the Puppy Packet Manager, menu->system->control panel->software, and left click the pet.

Don't mix both boot methods. When using rcrsn51's method, take my posts only as background info and vice versa.

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The files extracted from each Puppy's iso go into a separate folder in a partition, then grub4dosconfig is run on that partition and it makes a menu.list of all the Puppies it finds, as well as installing a bootloader in the partition. Is that right?

Yes. Additional info, a part of the bootloader will be installed to the MBR, which is outside of any partition and the rest will be installed in the first partition of the drive (if you have more than one).

In all that time. I have not worn out this 4gig Sandisk type4 card with save files or
any other abuse. I keep this card as my swiss army knife wrench for fixing
any breakage on this netbook with debian testing. I have pretty much installed the kitchen sink on this card and it has never failed yet. Even with the new wireless router with wpa2 encrypted password. I just fired up this card to post this. That is all. Happy Trails, Rok

Edit: just noticed the clock was off by 4 hours. Took a few seconds to fix.

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